The Invasion Read online

  Nessa is all but senseless when they throw her on her bed. ‘Easy!’ says the friendly guard. ‘She has broken fingers!’

  Annie’s there too. ‘Is it over?’ the woman asks the guard. ‘Can I go now? I’ve done my bit.’ Her voice turns to a whisper. She probably thinks Nessa is unconscious. ‘I told you everything she said, didn’t I? Annie doesn’t belong here any more. Hardly my fault nothin’ important was said, is it?’

  ‘Take it up with the warden.’

  Then the door swings shut, with Annie using all the old sexual curse words that used to shock members of her parents’ generation.

  Perhaps she shrugs – Nessa can’t see – but minutes later she is crouching by Nessa’s side, bathing the girl’s forehead with a damp cloth, her breath a wheezy, pungent cloud. The cloth feels wonderful and Nessa manages to open her eyes to thank her.

  ‘I don’t understand, babe,’ the woman says, ‘Annie don’t speak none of that Fairy language.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Nessa is feeling more herself. ‘It was Irish, not Sídhe. For a moment …’ For a moment she thought she was home with her mother.

  ‘Used to know some of that,’ says Annie. ‘From school, like. They was always gettin’ us to write about going to the beach and picnics. What a joke! When Annie was a kid, she screamed if her mam tried to drag her from her headset to go to the beach. Little did I know!’

  Nessa is only half listening, because most of her attention is on something else.

  ‘Annie,’ she says. ‘Annie, can you feel it? Can you feel the … the thudding? The pounding?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, babe. All that’s wrong with you is a fever. Annie’ll probably catch it from you and then where’ll she be? They don’t waste medicine on an aul’ one like me! Now that my kids are gone an’ they don’t trust me fixin’ engines any more, they’d rather I took myself off for a swim.’

  ‘Annie, we have to get out of here.’ The words all slur together. ‘We have to … go … now.’

  ‘It’s what I’ve been tellin’ them, pet. But will they listen? Stuck in this place for the sake of a stupid old bike!’

  Nessa fights the wave that’s dragging her away from the world. ‘Please, Annie,’ she says, but she’s speaking Irish again as she sinks back into the pillow.

  More pounding. Hammering too. It’s loud loud loud. The pain in her broken fingers doesn’t want her to rest either and grabs attention by shooting lightning all up the length of her left arm. By the Cauldron but it’s bad! And there’s nausea too, of a particular type that Nessa recognizes. But from where?

  She uses her good arm to sit up in the darkness, her forehead dripping with sweat, her heart hammering with fear. She can hear Annie snoring in the bed next to hers.

  Her vision spins. The back of her throat burns, and in her mind’s eye she sees it now, the Fairy Fort in Boyle, and remembers herself and Liz Sweeney crawling up the path towards it. The further they went, the sicker they became, getting closer and closer to that great stone door. And what was on the other side of it? The Grey Land of course. She has no doubt of that now.

  Nessa, who hates to show fear, whimpers in the night and pulls blankets away with her working hand. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. Annie? Annie, wake up! Wake up!’

  ‘What, babe? What is it?’

  Nessa hobbles towards her. The cool tiles are vibrating beneath her feet. How can Annie not notice? The very walls of the room are trembling. She must see it, she must! ‘I need to call the guards. Tell me how to call them.’

  ‘I—’

  There’s a noise like an explosion, a mighty crack: as though the whole world is being split in two, which perhaps it is. Right behind Nessa’s bed, the floor collapses, swallowing it whole. The ceiling drops by a metre, causing the iron-reinforced door to crumple and shoot out into the common area beyond.

  Nessa grabs Annie by the scruff of the neck.

  ‘Out,’ she says, ‘We’re getting out.’

  Emergency lights flicker on, almost useless amidst the clouds of dust and the shouts of confusion and fear from nearby cells.

  ‘Ow! You’re strong, girl,’ says Annie. ‘There’s no need to be so rough. There’s—’

  They hear the laughter then, from almost right below them. From the hole in their cell that took Nessa’s bed away. It has an innocent joyous quality about it and that sound, that sweet sound, turns all Annie’s protests into a cry of pure terror. She needs no further urging, but pushes Nessa ahead of her into the common area.

  Already, behind them, pale hands are grabbing at the edges of the hole in the floor of their cell.

  Alarms sound as all the other cell doors spring open automatically. The prisoners would be safer locked inside, Nessa thinks. But it’s too late. Everybody is rushing into the common area. They seem to think it’s a fire or a bomb or a drill. They think they can escape, when really, if they knew, if they really knew what was coming, they’d be hiding under beds or cutting their own throats with whatever came to hand.

  A sweet voice calls out from inside Nessa’s cell: ‘I see her!’

  She staggers forward to the main door that leads from the common area to the rest of the prison. Despite the alarm, it’s still locked. Of course it is.

  ‘Open up!’ she cries. ‘You’ve got to open it up!’

  ‘We’re trying,’ a voice comes back. ‘The automatic system hasn’t been used in years, it’s – Oh, by Crom! Holy Danú!’

  He has seen something behind her, and when Nessa turns she sees it too. A dozen stunningly beautiful men and women, their clothing a bizarre mix of human skin and natural fibres – if anything from the Grey Land can be described as ‘natural’.

  ‘Get down!’ says the guard. He’s struggling with a pistol at his belt, but Nessa knows he can’t kill all of them and that they won’t stop in any case.

  ‘Enough!’ she shouts at him. ‘Forget that. I need you to find a way to open this door!’

  Even if he does, it will be far too late for herself and Annie. But he obeys anyway. Glad, maybe, not to see what’s about to happen here. Not to have the horror of his Call brought back to him.

  All the other prisoners have pushed themselves up against the walls, expressions of horror on their faces. ‘Get back to your cells!’ Nessa calls. Or tries to, because her voice is faltering, breaking. ‘It’s me … it’s me they’re here for.’ And the Sídhe, no more than a dozen metres away, spreading out – a full score of them, by Crom! – smile at her, as though they feel nothing but love. Perhaps that’s even true.

  At the front of the pack walks a prince, his hair like red silk, his huge eyes sparkling and grey, his limbs armoured with blood-red wood. ‘All will see how we keep our promises! Our people to yours, binding us together, one to the other!’

  They stalk forward. Annie is sobbing, but she straightens her back all the same.

  Then the thug, Ciara, emerges from her cell holding one leg of her bed like a metal club. ‘Come ooooooooooon!’ she shouts. ‘They’ll kill us anyway! You know they will! Come ooooooon!’

  Nobody here likes Ciara. Maybe they don’t like anyone. They’re criminals, aren’t they? The useless leeches who grow fat on the Nation’s desperate, ailing body. Thieves; unloving mothers; murderers; resource hogs: everything that Ireland hates. Yet they bring their pathetic weapons and come running to answer Ciara’s challenge. Women fling shoes and hairbrushes. The younger ones, trained for combat, kick at knees or even faces, so that a few of the Sídhe go down.

  ‘How marvellous!’ says the red-haired prince. He laughs and his people are laughing too. They launch themselves into the fight and it’s not long until the screaming begins. Human flesh is like putty to them. Even as Nessa watches, a Sídhe beauty grabs old Ellen O’Brien by the neck and melts her windpipe shut. Ellen’s cellmate, Caoimhe, is already on the floor, her skull half the size it used to be, while other women totter around on limbs that have grown too long or that bend the wrong way entirely.

  From one of the cells a
voice howls out in perfect agony. It’s Melanie.

  The prince is lapping it up, but now, maybe, he wants to join in himself. ‘You were right, delightful thief,’ he says to Nessa. ‘I’m here for you. Of course I am.’

  And he does something completely unexpected: he removes a knife from inside his cloak. It is white, made of ivory or wood of some kind. Does he really mean to attack her with that little thing? It’s not that the Sídhe don’t have weapons. They have been known to bring down their human prey with arrows or spears.

  Nessa feels a growl rise in her throat. ‘I’m no easy meat,’ she tells him.

  ‘But I have not come to hurt you,’ he says. ‘I would never hurt you. None of us here would do so.’

  A bang sounds behind Nessa and the red-haired prince staggers back, blood blooming in his shoulder. The guard is there, his pistol sticking between the bars.

  ‘Thanks,’ Nessa manages, but then she takes a step back, because the gun is now pointed at her.

  ‘You’re next, traitor!’

  ‘What? I don’t—’

  A figure lunges in from the left, knocks her aside. The gun goes off again, hitting the Sídhe woman who has jumped in between Nessa and the guard. The victim lies bleeding on the ground. Now five or six of the enemy rush forward, trampling their fallen comrade, as though they actually want to protect Nessa. The gun fires again and again. Blood spatters everywhere. Big pools of it form, streaked with footprints from both the Sídhe and the human prisoners. The invaders grunt and laugh every time they’re hit, reaching through the bars to grab at the guard. Annie is somewhere in that scrum too, screaming and begging.

  Nessa slips on the wet floor and goes down.

  ‘See what we do to keep our word?’ says the wounded prince. He has come to kneel beside her, his shoulder still oozing blood. ‘Do you see? We have promised not to kill you. And we won’t.’

  Then he stabs at her, the ivory knife streaking towards her face. Nessa knocks his arm aside with her good hand. The other she jams into his shoulder wound, and she’s screaming more than he is as her broken fingers are bent backwards all over again. But neither of them gives up the struggle, fighting for control of the knife.

  There’s smoke in the air now, a smell of ozone and burning.

  The Sídhe prince’s face twists, flashing between mirth, agony and determination. He leans down on Nessa’s injured hand with all his weight.

  Abruptly she stops trying to push him away and pulls instead, so that his nose flies towards her forehead, smashing itself to a pulp, even as her whole vision goes white. He falls away, limp as one of her old teddies.

  Smoke is flooding the room now. Nessa feels woozy from the impact, but she manages to crawl a few steps through the fog. Her hand doesn’t hurt any more, she thinks. Nothing does. She finds her cheek on the tiles in a pool of somebody else’s blood, her eyes too heavy to stay open.

  ‘Get up!’ she tells herself, and then she’s out cold.

  Boiling

  ‘Nessa? Nessa! Are you all right?’

  Maybe. But she feels sick. Her eyes sting and the world lurches and blurs in her vision. Somebody supports her head in their lap. What if it’s Anto? All dangers have passed. He’ll lean down, so he will, his lips against hers.

  But that’s Professor Farrell shouting nearby, and Nessa knows Anto doesn’t belong in the same world as that witch. ‘I demand ye let me in there right now! Without my gas, ye would never have taken them alive!’

  ‘You … you shouldn’t have had that gas,’ the warden says. He’s standing right above her. His voice is shaking, maybe even shocked, but he plunges on. ‘You shouldn’t have known anything was going on here and you certainly shouldn’t have been able to get out of your room. We have an agreement.’

  ‘My instruments were going haywire, you idiot warden. What an opportunity. Every second you delay costs me knowledge. You think your rules matter one jot compared to this? And Melanie! They killed her, you say?’

  ‘They fixed her up first. Plugged the … the hole in her.’

  ‘Of course they did,’ the professor says. ‘They were keeping their promise. I know them. This is all wonderful.’

  The voices begin to fade out, but the girl holding Nessa shakes her awake again. ‘Is … is that you, Megan?’ Nessa mumbles.

  ‘It’s Angela. Angela Fonseca.’ Hearing that name fills Nessa with urgency and she fights to get her eyes open. That black hair, those same dark eyes, although they have lost their innocence. ‘They gassed you,’ the girl says, ‘but … but it’s cleared up pretty quickly.’

  Only half the fluorescent lights of the common area still work, and many of them flicker. But it’s enough to show Nessa a room filled with bodies. Women are groaning or weeping.

  ‘I’m a monster,’ somebody cries. ‘Oh, Lugh! Oh, Crom! I’m … I’m a twist.’

  People in white overalls stalk the room with cameras, recording everything. But none of it is as bizarre as Angela’s presence. The young woman wears nothing but a frayed prison blanket. She has cuts on her face, but seems otherwise unharmed.

  ‘How?’ Nessa manages.

  ‘I didn’t come back the normal way,’ Angela says. ‘I was … I was so unfit. And the trees! Oh, Lugh! The trees. The lions.’ She fights to keep from losing the contents of her stomach. Tears roll off her face to land on Nessa’s bruised forehead. ‘The Sídhe gave their lives for me, and let me follow them through that tunnel they made.’

  ‘A tunnel?’

  ‘It … it came out here. I climbed right out into your cell and saw all the fighting and the guns. And then the gas came. But most of the Sídhe were dead by then.’

  ‘I want those two.’ The professor has made it in to the common area after all.

  ‘You won’t hurt them?’ the warden asks. He keeps wary guards between his own lanky frame and the little old woman at all times. ‘Ms Doherty? Nessa? Do you need patching up first? Were you shot?’

  ‘No, but my fingers—’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry. But the Nation … Cassidy …’ He coughs and the white hair in his nostrils visibly flutters. ‘Please don’t keep them too long, Professor. They’ve had a terrible time.’

  ‘I’ll keep them as long as I need them,’ the professor says, and the warden affects not to hear her.

  Angela is pulled away and handcuffed first. There’s something strange about her that Nessa can’t quite articulate. Never mind. She has problems of her own. She’s lying on something hard. The knife, she realizes, the one the Sídhe tried to stab her with. A little thing, no longer than her hand, white as bone, jagged and sharp. It’s the most natural thing in the world for her to slip it in under the dressing on her injured hand. She pays for that with a wave of intense pain that beads her face with sweat.

  And then two guards are there for her, pulling her upright, examining her blood-stained clothing for cuts to her person.

  ‘They didn’t touch her,’ one of them says, his tone outraged. ‘She’s the only one here they didn’t try to kill. If anything they were keeping her alive.’

  They’re rougher with her after that. Handcuffs are tight enough to make her eyes water. Then a gang of them escorts herself and Angela out the door and down the same corridors they took the first time they went to the professor’s lair.

  She’s still not sure what’s bothering her about Angela. The girl seems whole and healthy, completely unharmed by the Sídhe. No doubt her mind will have been horribly affected by her experience, but that’s not it. It’s something physical that Nessa can’t quite put her finger on.

  The guards give her no time to reflect. As before, they set a pace that’s too fast for her malformed legs, dragging her whenever she slows or trips. But the way is long and soon they tire of the game.

  ‘How did that Crom-twisted madwoman get out of her room this time?’ one of the men asks.

  ‘Same gas she used on the Sídhe,’ says another. ‘Barney McD was out cold on the floor. She smashed his monito
r too for good measure.’

  ‘Don’t see what good it does to watch her anyway,’ says the first. ‘That sour udder always goes where she wants. And when the likes of us get damaged along the way, they never make her suffer for it. It would only be self-defence if a bullet made a home in her face.’

  ‘Hush!’ one says now in English. ‘For God’s sake, don’t let the swimmers hear you!’

  Swimmers, Nessa thinks. They mean me and Angela. A good name for women they plan to send to their deaths in a boat.

  But now, at last, she has a chance to study her companion again. Yes, she’s sure of it, something is definitely wrong with the girl. But what?

  ‘Angela,’ she says.

  ‘No talking there, if you want to keep the rest of those fingers.’

  Angela looks up anyway and Nessa has to clench her jaw to keep from crying out, because last time they came this way together and talked, the other girl didn’t have to look up to meet Nessa’s eyes. Which means she’s shorter than she was a few days ago.

  She’s shrinking!

  It’s a horrible realization that makes Nessa’s whole body go cold. Does she even know it’s happening to her? Or is she one of them in disguise?

  Her thoughts roil with these ideas, but confusing though they are, it’s better than thinking about how close the red-haired prince came to stabbing her with the knife she now carries.

  Moments later they reach the scorched and pitted door to the laboratory. Are these the results of the old woman’s previous experiments? Men and women are just fuel to her thirst for knowledge, Nessa thinks. And the Nation is so desperate it panders to her whims.

  The doors swing open and a brutal push in the small of her back sends Nessa sprawling inside with no way to protect her face from smacking down onto the floor.

  ‘I’ll have the keys to their handcuffs!’ the professor calls out.

  ‘Like you even need them!’ says one of the guards, and the door slams shut.

  ‘Pah,’ the old woman says. ‘They waste my time. Doherty, show me your wrists.’ She fiddles at the lock with a wire for a few seconds until the cuffs spring open. ‘Now you, Fonseca.’